Intro

My username is Leechoffme and I play on the NA server and this is one of my first guides. I'll try to be in-depth and explain everything properly but if you have any questions please feel free to ask me or add me. Ive been playing Volibear ranked since 2014 and he's my go-to champ to carry, besides LeBlanc of course. He's helped get me to gold and he can get you there as well! Volibear is always a viable pick because of his carry potential. It is very easy to get fed as him and late game he becomes a superb tank with a lot of dmg because his Frenzy damage scales with his health. I have over 100,000 mastery points in him so I know his ins and outs pretty well. Enjoy :) ps I will update with every patch and please feel free to comment and vote; all that good stuff.

My Elophant

You'll see below I have an over 60% win rate with Volibear and more wins than loses.

pros and cons

Pros

+ durable+ Strong early game+ Strong Ganks+ Fast+ Super tanky

Volibear is super powerful early game and his passive Chosen of the Storm means you can gank with less worries about dying. He also clears the jungle with high health remaining so it's easier to gank.

Cons

+ Easily kited+ Low damage late game

VolibearCan be kited, that's why this build focuses on speed so much and getting tanky.

Mastery Explanations

My masteries are a little unusual because the keystone mastery I use is more suited for team fights than individual fights.

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FEROCITY TREE

Tier 1 We want Fury for the attack speed bonus it gives us. We're not building AP so we don't need Sorcery in this tier.

Tier 2 We grab Feast because we don't really want to take the extra damage that comes with the other mastery and the bonus health from Feast helps in the jungle.

Tier 3 We don't use life steal on this build so Vampirism is useless but Natural Talent helps a lot because it scales with level and provides AD and AP which you need for auto attack and your abilities.

Tier 1 We want Unyielding because Volibear needs a lot of magic resist and armor to scale into the game. We also chose Unyielding because we get even more bonus armor and magic resist from our runes and items!

Tier 2 Explorer is good but it doesn't help as much as Tough Skin because our build already has a lot of movement speed items. Tough Skin helps a lot in the jungle early game.

Bond of Stone and Strength of the Ages are both good choices and if you want to solo more then you can choose the latter but I go with Bond of Stone usually because 6% damage reduction is a huge amount. Even 3% is a lot. Strength of the Ages is good because of the bonus health it provides, especially since your going to be farming a lot and you will get it fairly quickly so you'll be tank and have extra damage for your w Frenzy.

Skill Information

chosen of the storm: // When Volibear's health drops below 30% of his maximum health, he will heal for 30% of his maximum health over the next 6 seconds. This passive effect has a 120 second cooldown.

This can easily be used to bait people into inopportune fights for them.

rolling thunder: // For the next 4 seconds, Volibear will gain 15% movement speed. This bonus increases to 45% movement speed when moving toward a nearby visible enemy champion. Additionally, Volibear's next autoattack during this time will deal bonus physical damage and will fling the target behind him.

Tips and Tricks

does dmg to turrets

resets aa

the move speed bonus isn't lost after you fling some one

your main ganking tool. Throwing on a chilling smite when you get in range will not disrupt it, and will help you catch your target

frenzy: // (Passive): Volibear temporarily gains bonus attack speed after an autoattack. This bonus stacks up to 3 times and lasts for 4 seconds.

(Active): While Volibear has 3 stacks of Frenzy, he can activate this ability to bite a target enemy. The stacks won't be consumed. The bite will deal physical damage that scales with his own bonus health. This damage will in turn be increased by 1% for every 1% of the target's missing health.

Tips and Tricks

it is one of the greatest executes in the game. Your percent health value also scales with missing health which brings it to a mid game nuke spell like veigar's ult. This ability is your bread and butter and you max it first to have the highest damage output in fights.

majestic roar: // Volibear lets out a powerful roar that deals magic damage and slows nearby enemies for 3 seconds. Minions, monsters and pets are also feared for 3 seconds.

Tips and Tricks

you can use before your q if your having trouble catching up

great for jungle

max after w

thunder claws: // For the next 12 seconds, Volibear's autoattacks will blast his targets with lightning that will bounce to up to 3 nearby enemies. Each bolt of lightning will deal magic damage and will only hit each target once.

Tips and Tricks

can be used to clear mobs cause of short cd

can kill a very low enemy because of the chain during lane

Skill Sequence

I max w Frenzy first because it's your main source of damage and the attack speed and damage allows you to clear the jungle fast.

I go e Majestic Roar 2nd and max it second because it prevents the minions from attacking you for a few seconds, provides damage, and a slow.

I go q Rolling Thunder last because you need the flat rate movement speed boost to chase down champions. The fling is useful but it doesn't do as much damage as your e Majestic Roar and is really not that great at clearing minion waves or mobs in the jungle.

Item Build Times and Sequence

This is a timed picture of my item sequence for a game I did well in. You can see I have my full jungle item before 10 minutes into the game. I rushed Dead Man's Plate after the boots and jungle item and then went straight for Thornmail because 4 of the members on their team were attack damage champions. The game ended sooner than my full build.

Item Choices

Items

Item Sequence

Stalker's Blade - Cinderhulk2500

Mercury's Treads1100

Dead Man's Plate2900

Spirit Visage2800

Thornmail2900

Randuin's Omen2900

This is the go to jungle item for you. You can use smite on champions and deal a little bonus true damage and it also slows them. Using it doesn't slow you down which is prime which makes it good for escaping and chasing. The bonus health and passive damage to enemies around you from the cinder hulk enchantment really helps as well!. Don't be afraid to use this on champions to slow them so you can get close or get a kill!

Great for roaming really fast through the jungle and getting all around the map. this item paired with Dead Man's Plate is great because you'll go super duper fast. The problem is that once you attack with dmp it doesn't make you as fast so you can get in with your q Rolling Thunder and Dead Man's Plate and stay there with your e Majestic Roar.

This is also a great item choice for boots because it gives your the movement speed you want but you also get a slow resist so this is a good choice when your enemies have cc to stop you. This might be a better pick than Boots of Mobility for beginners.

[Mercury's treads=40]

Your go to boots. These boots are best when you are facing a team with a lot of hard cc. This means you are facing a team with a nautilus sup, morg mid, jinx bot, elise jg, and some one top. The mass amount of stuns this team has means you want as much help getting out of their cc as quickly as possible. These boots will help you do that and give you some magic resist to boot. I like to run alacrity when I buy these boots because I really like to get a lot of movement speed.

Great item for getting in close to the enemy. makes you fast in the jungle and doesn't deactivate when you get attacked which makes it good for chasing and escaping! this item is what you want to get after your jungle item and boots. The slow it comes with and extra armor is also a nice added bonus.

This item is great because it gives you health, magic resist, and its 20% healing bonus affects your passive. this is the 4th item you want

If the enemy team is 4 people with attack damage you need this item. It returns the damage you take and you get 100 armor which is very very useful. It doesn't give any health which kind of sucks but you'll get health from cinder hulk, Dead Man's Plate and Spirit Visage. sometimes you want to build this before spirit visage if their ad is getting very fed. 4th or 5th item to build

Honestly this last item is up to you. The reduce on critical strikes on you is very nice and if you're getting kited the attack speed slow helps too. the armor is good against attack damage champs and the activated component of it which slows enemies is good for escaping and sticking too your target but theres items for that like Frozen Heart or maybe you don't need to be tanker so you can get Titanic Hydra or another item. Basically if you make it this far and you still need an item then get this but chances are you'll win before you need it. Make sure you buy your Elixir of Iron

I personally don't like this item that much because of a few reasons. One you have a flip and slows and you can also enchant your boots with captain so your allies can follow up with you. Two I don't like that it doesn't give you and armor or magic resist. Three the slow you can activate at the end of the bonus only lasts for one second while randuins last's for four seconds. Five it does not make a good escape item, It is great for starting fights but not much else.

This item is best when you're ahead and you want more pushing power. It allows you to clear mobs fast because of the aoe dmg it supplies, and it increases even more because the health you get from it benefits your W Frenzy. I don't rush this item, it is usually only useful for me when I am trying to carry harder and am very tanky already.

Summoner Spells

I like using flash when I jungle with Volibear because you can use it to escape or chase over walls. you can Flash and then use your q Rolling Thunder and turn it into a combo and potentially a kill after using your e Majestic Roar, which slows them. It's better than Ghost because you get enough movement speed from my build.

Self explanatory. You need smite to jungle effectively.

The First Gank and Clear

Top: gromp->wolves->blue

Bot: krugs->raptors->red

The first gank can set the pace for the rest of the game so it is very important you do it well. When I enter the game I get my first items and I rush bot lane or wherever my adc is starting. What I do is start on the side my bot is so I can get a good leash. You don't need a leash but it really helps keep your health and clear ability up so you can provide a good early gank. That means I start gromp when I'm on top team and golems when I'm on bottom team. I clear 3 mobs then go for the first gank. What I do is I clear gromp/golemn then move to wolf/raptors, then do blue or red. I don't do blue or red second because I like saving my smite for them. Red gives u a nice health boost and blue will make sure you have enough mana to gank. After I do my first wave clear I look at bot and mid and see which looks easier to come in on. Is the mid/bot lane pushing far in already and/or have low health? If they aren't that pushed in you can get rift scuttler and see if anything changes. By this time your passive Chosen of the Storm should still be up and you should have more than 80% of your health. You want to have one point in all your skills as well. Make sure you don't stop farming in the jungle! Your e Majestic Roar is the second skill you want because it prevents enemy minions and neutral minions from attacking you which will help a lot early game!

general info

This Volibear build is for being a tank or offtank in the jungle. You will be surprised about how much damage you do with Volibear. His w scales off of his own health so you'll want to build a lot of health to make sure he does the most damage he can with his w. For boots you prioritize speed. That's why you have the choice between Boots of Mobility and Boots of Swiftness. You need Dead Man's Plate to stick to your target and your q [rolling thunder]] will help with that as well. You don't do well against champs that inhibit your chasing ability. That means that Zyra, Morgana, Vayne, etc will be very annoying to play against.

You may be wondering when is the best time to sell your potion. I don't upgrade my potion after buying it usually because I feel that it takes up too much space and money in the long run and I usually sell it once I need that little bit of money to get an item I want. That usually happens to me around the 20 minute mark of the game but it can happen at the 30 minute mark if I just don't need any extra money at the time. Basically sell the Refillable Potion when your strapped for cash and don't want to wait for a big item or when you need to make room for other items.

Late Game

Ok so you've made it to late game and your unsure which item to pick as your last item. You're doing great but you notice that the enemy add is kiting you and your health, passive Chosen of the Storm, and Thornmail are helping a lot but you think you need some more armor and some sort of way to escape and chase him/her down more easily. It is at this point you buy Randuin's Omen. Same idea if you need some more magic resist. Buy an item like Banshee's Veil or something with magic resist. By this point you should have a very large amount of health and you should be disgustingly tanky. Some important things to note is that while you can solo dragon at this point, it is not recommended because it will take you like 2 or 3 minutes. Your w Frenzy is great at killing champions. Dragon just has too much health and Frenzy's cooldown make's it an ability to you don't just spam. Bring another person so you can kill dragon in a reasonable fashion or just have them solo it. Make sure your team is warding a lot so you can get said dragon, and baron and not get caught out.

Boots

Okay I've decided to do a chapter on boots to help you decide which boots you may want to run. These are often very situational. First I'll go over the only two enchantments.

These boots are best when they have little cc, mainly skill shots, and you really feel that you need to assert lane presence. Go these boots when you feel confident in dodging abilities and confident in playing Volibear. I do not recommend beginners use these boots.

These boots are are my personal favorite for pre 6.11. They combine speed and tenacity. You will resist slows and generally be a very fast bear running down his enemies. Good for beginners and carrying. due to their giant series of nerds they are kinda wack now

your go to boots. These boots are best when you are facing a team with a lot of hard cc. This means you are facing a team with a nautilus sup, morg mid, jinx bot, elise jg, and some one top. The mass amount of stuns this team has means you want as much help getting out of their cc as quickly as possible. These boots will help you do that and give you some magic resist to boot. I like to run alacrity when I buy these boots because I really like to get a lot of movement speed.

These boots are best when you are facing some one like a fed master yi, who relies a lot on basic attacks. Basically when you are facing duelers. I rarely use these boots they are definitely useful in certain situations.

The other boots are not viable on volibear.

Tips/Useful Information

Tips and useful information

This will be a list of easy things that can help improve your Volibear experience and help you better understand him.

His passive is benefitted from spirit visage.

Your q Rolling Thunder gives you a speed bonus so you can use for escaping and chasing.

You are a very fast bear running down your enemies, thats pretty cool and scary to face.

Team Fighting

Your job is to either fling enemies towards your team so you can kill them, or fling them away from an ally with low health to save them. You also slow champions and provide mobility for nearby allies. You are tank which is meant to soap up a lot of the damage. You also are a force to be reckoned with if you are ignored and an enemy squishy gets too slow. You execute low health champs quite easily with w Frenzy.

Hall o' Fame

Change log

-updated for 6.15, no changes
-updated for 6.14, no changes
-updated for 6.13, volibear early game potential down. His mid to late game stays the same though.
-updated for 6.12, no changes
-updated for 6.11, boots of swiftness got nerfed again and now mercury's treads are a better pick. :(
-updated for 6.10, no changes
-updated for 6.9, Lots of big changes in items! the build path hasn't changed and neither have the items. boot enchantments have been removed, cinder hulk got buffed, and spirit visage got reworked, I'm not sure if i like it better or not but the passive is just too good to remove it.
-updated for 6.8, no changes in patch notes. I added a boot break down section
-updated for 6.7, no changes
-updated for 6.6, Titanic Hydra is still viable but it got nerfed pretty hard.
-updated for 6.5, no changes
-updated for 6.4, Boot's of swiftness got nerfed again. Now I usually run mob boots or mech when they have a lot of cc on their team.
-Updated for 6.3, Dead Man's Plate got nerfed a little but still viable. [boots of mobility] got buffed, and the boot price got raised from 800 to 900. no changes to build.
-Updated for 6.2, no new changes to build
-Updated for season six (6.1). Strength of the Ages now a better pick than Bond of Stone . tier 2 jungle items got cheaper, and there was a buff for mana regen on them!